Harvard versus Trump: Fight over US imperialist strategy

Trump versus Harvard: Academic Freedom? – Or Freedom from Capitalism!

May 31— “There’s no academic freedom in Gaza,” posted a Harvard alumna. “All the educational institutions have been bombed into rubble.”
“Don’t bring up Palestine,” someone complained. “It’s divisive.”
Five thousand Harvard alumni were attending a webinar recruiting them for a “united front to defend academic freedom.” The Trump administration has cancelled Harvard’s research grants and contracts, mainly in science and medicine. It’s threatening Harvard’s tax-exempt status. It plans to exclude international students, 27% of the student body.
“The defense of free speech rarely directly includes the right to protest matters of global, national, local, or even university concern,” noted another alumnus. “The defense of university self-governance rarely acknowledges the existing degree of corporate capture of the fruits of scientific research.”
Leave Palestine out of it? Trump’s main excuse is that Harvard supposedly doesn’t do enough to shield Jewish students from anti-genocide protests.
The campus Jewish community rejects Trump’s charges. Surveys show that Arab and Muslim students feel much more threatened. The “academic freedom united front” throws them, and Palestinians, under the bus.
Harvard has hired noted conservative lawyers for its legal battles. A former clerk for Justice Scalia just joined the Harvard Corporation. This is a fight within the US ruling class, not against it.

Harvard and US Imperialism

Have you heard the saying, “He who pays the piper calls the tune?” Since World War II, Harvard has danced to the tune of US imperialism. But often it has supplied the pipers, too. Leading Harvard professors go back and forth between the university and key government positions. Others are propagandists for pro-capitalist ideas.
But Trump wants Harvard and other universities to dance to his personal tune. To let him dictate hiring, curriculum, and admissions. To enrich his family and cronies. And for Harvard to abandon its role in projecting US imperialist “soft power.”
For example, many world leaders have attended Harvard. The current Prime Ministers of Canada, Singapore, Mongolia, Greece. The Presidents of Taiwan, Ecuador, Moldova, Botswana. Former heads of Mexico, Chile, Liberia, Jamaica, Colombia, Bhutan, Hong Kong, Israel, India, Pakistan, Jordan, South Korea, Ireland, Japan. Their college ties to young members of the US ruling class helped US imperialism dominate the world.
Many other international students stayed to make US capitalism more profitable. Others went home – for example, to China – more sympathetic to US imperialism.
Harvard enhances US military power, too. Napalm was invented there. Trump’s funding cuts ended an estimated $180 million in recent military research.
US courts are opposing most of Trump’s attacks on Harvard. But, whatever the outcome, the damage to US imperialism has been done. Universities in Hong Kong, India, and elsewhere will welcome students and researchers who Trump scared away. This goes with his attacks on programs like USAID and Voice of America. On European allies.

So the “united front to defend academic freedom” turns out to be a defense of post-World War II US imperialist strategy.

Trump’s gold-plated “populist” attacks on “elites” aim to build xenophobia. To misdirect mass anger. They won’t put food on the table or pay medical bills. It’s capitalism in crisis – not just Trump-style fascism – that makes life increasingly difficult for the masses. The masses need communist revolution.
Communism will have no elites or elite universities. Or any universities as we know them today. Nobody will live better or worse than anyone else. Gone will be the freedom to exploit and oppress. No “academic freedom” for a privileged few who don’t threaten the rulers.
In communism, education will serve the masses. All will have the means and the freedom to develop ourselves to the fullest. To travel. To enjoy meaningful productive work, lifelong learning, and collective decision-making.
In Gaza – and wherever else necessary – we will build this new world on the rubble of the old.

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